- Training, Study, Practice
“What should I do?”
There wasn’t much to do during an ambush.
You just had to watch well.
Hidden in a good concealment, the chance of being caught off guard was low.
The spot was comfortable, so it was also a good place to rest.
The only thing to be careful of was everyone falling asleep at once and getting wiped out because they failed to notice the enemy coming.
Sowoon, however, was exempted from several duties simply because he was young.
During training there were always eyes on him, so they could not spare him like this.
But in an ambush with only five men out, he was treated like an extra—someone carried along rather than relied upon.
They knew it wasn’t ideal, yet Sosam did not insist on his authority as squad leader and instead covered a share of Sowoon’s role.
That kept the others from complaining.
Sowoon rose, took a mounted stance, then brought both arms around as if hugging something and assumed the zhan zhuang posture.
His right thigh throbbed.
He had not consciously forced himself yesterday, yet it seemed he had overdone it without realizing.
He straightened his back, drew his chin in, and set his head upright.
He inhaled long, paused, then exhaled.
After one cycle, the posture felt steadier.
He repeated it—twice, three times—lengthening the breath, settling further each time.
Sowoon’s usual method of training was simple.
He had no superior technique.
He intended to keep standing until zhan zhuang “took.”
Time was what he needed to make up for a lack of strength.
He could not hope for power to appear overnight.
So he decided to build inner power step by step.
Even just enduring punishments—the tiger-step drills and other brutal routines—took immense effort.
Strength had to come first.
In the end, what remained most effective was internal cultivation.
He had blamed himself for being lazy at home.
But few ordinary boys could cling to internal training that showed no visible progress.
Even grown men who truly wanted to master the martial path had to labor for a long time just to hold a single sip of true qi.
Internal work demanded stubborn perseverance.
Sowoon was beginning to realize, dimly, that this was the only shortcut left.
Back at his main house, he had done a little only because his father pressed him.
He had neglected it badly.
Polishing inner qi was nothing but hardship and no reward, suffocatingly frustrating.
Standing still, or sitting still, felt meaningless.
So he had only gone through the motions and never worked at it.
Now, what he had avoided because it would not work had become the only solution that remained.
He had no choice but to do it.
And here, there was nothing else to do.
No books to read.
No wandering around the camp out of curiosity.
When he had to stay put, Sowoon chose zhan zhuang.
He still had no qi-sense at all.
Nothing gathered that could be called “qi,” and he could not feel anything.
As his breathing deepened and his posture stabilized, he sank lower.
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He wanted to load the thighs.
Some part of him also hoped—foolishly—that suffering the body might make it come faster.
The posture, arms relaxed as though hugging a log, could not be held for long.
Sweat came.
Comfort took time to arrive.
But when there was nothing to do, and moving was forbidden, he had no choice but to hold it.
You could sleep for an hour or two, not endlessly.
Letting circumstances force you into what your will cannot sustain is a kind of skill.
“If inner power accumulates, I’ll be able to use strength more efficiently, and the road of a warrior will open.
I don’t know what comes after that, but first I have to lay the basics of inner qi.”
Choosing zhan zhuang in those idle military hours—when there were no orders and nothing to do—was the right choice.
Sowoon did not feel it, but the elixir the Grand General had fed him, and the repeated zhan zhuang whenever time allowed, were waking his inner qi to some degree.
He intended to keep standing until qi-sense appeared, and the army would make that possible.
Isn’t the army a place full of hours you must endure without thought?
Whenever he had time, Sowoon stood in zhan zhuang.
When the posture became impossible, he eased into a comfortable stance and regulated his breathing.
He did wish for guidance from a great master.
But that was beyond dreaming.
His father had taught him before.
Now he had to do it alone.
And if something went wrong in training, there was no one nearby to help him anymore.
Worse, he had no manual.
He had to rely on memory, and his memory was not precise.
A dark imagination swept through his chest.
The surroundings were strangely peaceful.
Warm sunlight poured down, and the biting cold of days ago felt like a lie.
Ice would melt, spring would come, and that day was not far.
Gat?krip and Tar?kch’?l’s army would strain desperately to retreat before the thaw.
They would not try to strike elsewhere inside the Great Wall.
They would attempt to pass right through here.
Sowoon knew that meant this period would not last long.
His thighs weakened, as if they would collapse.
He held on, sweating cold.
It became bearable, then painful, then bearable again, in repeating waves.
“What are you doing?”
Sosam summed up Sowoon’s awkward half-squat with a single, flat remark.
“Taking a dump?”
Jeongjin added.
“We spared you so you could rest, and you pull this crap…”
Sosam’s tone had come back to life.
He was bright by nature, and he had recovered quickly from the grief his brother’s death had brought.
As the two approached, Sowoon straightened his legs and stood properly.
His thighs trembled faintly.
“I’m training.”
“And what’s that supposed to improve?”
It was less a question than a scolding.
“It’s called zhan zhuang. They say it helps you get qi-sense—feel qi—faster.”
Even his own voice lacked confidence.
Sowoon could not be sure either.
He had never reached that realm, so he did not know what would actually change.
“They say? So even you don’t know if it’s true or bullshit.”
“It’s an old training method. It should be true.”
“If you feel qi, then what?”
“Accumulating qi—storing it. Building it up.”
“So, inner power.”
“Yes.”
“They say you can do that for decades and still get nowhere. They say it’s a scam.”
“That’s what people say… But I don’t have another way. There’s nothing else I can do.
I have to do something. I can’t stay exempted like a child forever.
It won’t be one day or two before my body grows—years will pass.
So I’m trying to build inner power at least.”
“Fair. If I knew how, I’d help you. But why do you even need that?
Aren’t you the inheritor of the Confucian Sword?”
“I haven’t really learned it. I kept dodging because I didn’t want to do it.
What I remember is just a few lines of the sword path and a few forms.
That won’t get me through this mess.
If I’m going to have a role here and cut down the barbarians, I have to grow.”
“Hah. Kid’s on about barbarians again.”
Sosam shook his head and returned to his position.
Whenever Sowoon mentioned barbarians, the same talk followed, and Sosam was tired of it.
That was how conversations went.
Sowoon answered every question earnestly, and in the end he always stated his goal as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
The problem was that he took passing remarks in the army as serious questions.
He would think hard with an innocent face, prepare an answer, and then explain with care.
“I heard something. This time the Grand General brought a secret manual from the Imperial Palace, didn’t he?
An imperial martial manual. They say he’s going to teach it to us.
Wouldn’t it be better to do that instead?
Just wait a bit. If standing like that raised inner power, everyone would do it.”
“Yeah… I know it looks pathetic, but nothing else really comes to mind.”
“Quit it. Nobody’s going to eat you just because you don’t do that.”
“I’m doing it because I want to.”
“Hah, kid.”
Park Cheongyun turned away as well.
When the two began their watch, the other two rubbed their eyes and leaned into a comfortable spot.
They rotated often, so no one would be left alone too long, sunk into the scenery.
If you stare at one place too long, everything starts to look the same, and even a tiger charging from the front can feel like a lifeless object.
Left alone again, Sowoon resumed zhan zhuang.
He was young and lacked strength, so he thought he had to build inner power.
To those who have never learned, inner power is nothing but a lie.
To those who have learned, it becomes an endless object of greed.
They say one “cycle” of sixty years is a single gapja.
That is an entire human life.
But even that is only a relative measure.
Relative…
It does not mean that someone with two gapja has trained one hundred and twenty years.
Inner power is surrounded by myth.
If you keep accumulating and accumulating, you become an invincible legend, the hero of a myth.
Because of those stories, every sect in the martial world focused on internal cultivation.
Sowoon’s Confucian Sword, with its base in Henan, could not be called first-rate.
“First-rate” meant the standard internal method and circulating practice cultivated in great orthodox sects.
It was not something you merely learned.
It demanded harsh training and time investment.
Even then, people differed.
Some could never make it work no matter how long they tried.
Someone born with exceptional bones and tendons might progress faster.
Someone who trained faithfully and steadily might also progress faster.
Because it was not done with muscles or limbs, but with focused intent and breath, concentration was required.
The core of the mind had to be strong.
To endure that time, the conditions had to exist.
An environment that allowed full devotion to training had to be in place.
How long you train matters.
But how efficiently you train matters more.
In the end, it is a question of how.
It consumes immense mental force.
Sowoon understood that clearly, and he was trying to hone it on the battlefield.
Nothing sharpens concentration like danger.
He trained by concentrating inside danger.
In fact, in danger, Sowoon could focus more closely on the flow of inner qi氣.